The Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, in collaboration with Dubbs Weinblatt (they/them) and their podcast, Thank You For Coming Out, is presenting a conversation series that amplifies underrepresented voices from a wide spectrum of the LGBTQ+ community. The universal themes will surprise, enlighten, and inspire you. Our first guest for this special series is Kristen Arnett (any pronouns).
Kristen is the author of “With Teeth: A Novel” (Riverhead Books, 2021) and The New York Times bestselling debut novel “Mostly Dead Things” (Tin House, 2019), which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in fiction. She is a queer fiction and essay writer. She was awarded Ninth Letter’s Literary Award in Fiction, has been a columnist for Literary Hub, and was a spring 2020 Shearing Fellow at Black Mountain Institute. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Cut, The Oprah Magazine, North American Review, The Normal School, Gulf Coast, TriQuarterly, Guernica, BuzzFeed, Electric Literature, McSweeneys, PBS NewsHour, Bennington Review, The Guardian, Salon, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Her next book (an untitled collection of short stories) will be published by Riverhead Books (Penguin Random House). She holds a master’s degree in library and information science from Florida State University and currently lives in Miami, Florida.
As queer people, we are constantly coming out, and each coming out story is unique in its blend of humor, heartache, worry, and wonder. “Thank You For Coming Out,” inspired by Dubbs’ beloved live comedy show of the same name, pairs them as host with lesbian, gay, trans, bi, non-binary, and more members of the queer community to discuss their coming out stories.
